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Mayor says go big on transportation, but colleagues go small

Traffic backs up on northbound Mopac during the morning commute into downtown Austin on Monday, May 2, 2016. LAURA SKELDING / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

In announcing a $720 million bond package to overhaul key traffic corridors, Austin Mayor Steve Adler said it’s time to “go big or go home.”

He is right. Yet some of his colleagues are going small — so small, one has to wonder if they are traveling in the same traffic as the rest of us.

It’s time to go big because Austin’s busiest arteries – including North and South Lamar Boulevard, Burnet Road and Airport Boulevard, all built decades ago– have not kept pace with the area’s explosive growth. The Austin-area is approaching 2 million people, but still traveling on roads more suited for a time when the region was half its current size.

Austin residents have a remarkable opportunity to do something about their transportation predicament. Adler’s so-called Smart Corridors initiative offers bigger and bolder results when matched with Austin state Sen. Kirk Watson’s proposal to overhaul Interstate 35. Imagine that the region could see meaningful relief to congestion over the next decade with roads and transit features that appeal to drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and public transit commuters.

Watson should reconsider one measure in the plan to drop I-35 lanes that run through Austin below street level. Aside from being overly expensive, dropping 1-35 lanes would further displace African Americans, Latinos and lower-income people from East Austin neighborhoods already undergoing massive gentrification. Watson has not addressed either the cost or the impact of burying I-35 lanes.

If anyone doubts that traffic is a major headache than check out the findings of a recent poll that identified transportation woes as the worst thing about living in Austin.

City Council Member Ann Kitchen seems well-intended by advocating for a $300 million transportation bond package whose debt could be retired without an additional tax rate increase. Adler’s initiative, by contrast, would require a 2-cent per $100 of valuation increase, adding about $50 a year to the property tax bill on a $250,000 home.

It’s important to keep one’s eye on taxes, but Kitchen’s approach doesn’t go far enough to create the kind of transit system that shifts people from cars to other modes of transportation, particularly Capital Metro buses.

Kitchen corrected me when I called the bond package the “Kitchen plan,” saying it was the joint creation of the Council’s four-member mobility committee she chairs. As such, she said it was a starting point for debating a transportation bond package for the November election. The council has until Aug. 22 to decide what if anything to put on a November ballot.

The Kitchen-backed proposal also would steer $46.5 million to Loop 360 and Parmer Lane, $39.7 million to sidewalks and $22 million to bike pathways and trails. Adler’s puts more in all of those with sidewalks receiving $55 million, $20 million for protected bike pathways and $30 million for trails.

Casar’s proposal does steer much of the bond money, about $420 million, to corridors identified in Adler’s plan. But it also shifts $180 million Adler included for chokepoints in neighborhoods west of Mopac to sidewalks, bike pathways and trails. In all, bike and pedestrian projects get $300 million. That’s a political nonstarter. Not only does it ignore Austin’s more affluent and vote-rich communities west of Mopac, it pits drivers against cyclists and pedestrians.

Casar explained his initiative as one aimed at promoting “a future where hopefully the majority of Austinites do not have to be trapped in single-occupancy vehicles on their daily route to work.”

I, too, share that vision, especially since my own commute, now at about 50 minutes one way during peak times, has more than tripled in 15 years. But that future won’t arrive anytime soon without a cultural shift that gets people out of their single-occupancy vehicles and into other modes of transportation. That can’t be done by force or other such pressures. If that were true, it would have happened already, given Austin’s horrific congestion.

The shift that Casar wants only can happen if people change their view of public transit. That requires creating a high quality commuter experience with buses that move on express or managed lanes so they keep reliable schedules and are not stuck in traffic; pull-outs for buses so drivers aren’t stuck behind them when they stop to pick up or drop off commuters; smart traffic lights that can be timed remotely from the city’s traffic management center so traffic can be managed in real time for weather, accidents and flow; protected bike lanes so cars don’t get stuck behind cyclists and cyclists can ride safely; and sidewalks to provide a safe path for those who want to walk to bus stops, work or shops.

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Here's where the American-Statesman's editorial board members give their take on the news of the day, as well as give insight and analysis on the issues that matter to Central Texans. On occasion, the Viewpoints blog will serve as additional space for editorials that reflect the opinion of the American-Statesman. And, from time to time, readers will find contributions from special guests. Blog contributors include: Juan Castillo, Alberta Phillips and Gissela SantaCruz.